Three Charged In Baby Selling Business Has Scranton Office

A Brooklyn couple and a Manhattan rabbi were accused yesterday of luring pregnant women from the South and Midwest and illegally selling their babies to childless couples here for as much as $36,000.

State Attorney General Robert Abrams charged in a civil complaint that Lawrence and Harriet Lauer conducted "a large-scale baby-selling business" by recruiting expectant mothers through classified ads and selling their babies to the highest bidder. They were aided by Seymour Fenichel, a rabbi and attorney here, the complaint said.

The Lauers, who also maintain an office in Scranton, handled 20 to 40 adoptions a year since 1984, according to Lanie Accles, a spokeswoman for Abrams. She said many involved white babies, who command the highest prices.

The Pennsylvania attorney general is also investigating the agency, known as Childhaven of Northeastern Pennsylvania, according to a spokesman for that office.

Harriet Lauer, reached by telephone at her Brooklyn home, declined to comment. Fenichel could not be reached for comment.

The Lauers brought the biological mothers to Brooklyn from suchstates as Virginia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana and Illinois, paid them $2,000 each and provided them with housing and medical care, authorities said. Three pregnant women were found at the couple's home during a court-authorized search Monday, Accles said.

The complaint charged that the operation was illegal because it had never been licensed by New York's social service agency and was no longer licensed by Pennsylvania authorities. The Lauers also charged "unconscionable fees" averaging $10,000 to $12,000 per baby, Accles said.

Accles, who did not rule out the possibility of criminal charges, said that adoption agencies are legally entitled to charge prospective parents only for medical care and other reasonable expenses.

In one ad in the National Star, a tabloid, the agency Childhaven said: "ADOPTION, PREGNANT, undecided, confused and worried? We care! . . . Free medical, housing, financial help and counseling. Call collect."

The Lauers made "emotional and financial threats" against women who grew reluctant to give up their babies, according to the complaint. "They said they would not give them fare back to their home states if they didn't relinquish the babies," Accles said. "These are obviously women who don't have a lot of money and were in a strange city."